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SITUATONAL ANALYSIS AND PROJECT RATIONAL

Urban poverty in Ethiopia is a multi-faced phenomenon with socio-economic, cultural and political dimensions. It reflects the inability of an individual, household or the community to satisfy minimum dimensions. In addition to economic and material deprivation, poverty is manifested in several other ways including an absence of employment opportunities, lack of social security, vulnerability to external shocks be the economic or otherwise and finally noiselessness and powerlessness in dealing with state intuitions (World Bank, 2000; 2001).One factor contributing to increasing urban poverty in Ethiopia is high urban population growth, rural-urban migration, and rural landlessness, drought, famine, declining agricultural productivity and general deterioration of rural living standard. Rapid urban population growth has placed tremendous sanitation and environmental protection programs in order to combat urban poverty and unemployment in cities and towns across the country.

The town

Awassa is a large town on the shores of Lake Awassa situated in the Great Rift Valley. It is the capital of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region. The town is connected by an excellent road to Addis Ababa, 275 km distant. Awassa is situated in the Sidamo region, famous for its coffee growing and fertile land. The town is famous for its beautiful lake and for the best birdlife in Ethiopia. The city has been serving southern Nations & Nationalities peoples regional state, Awassa city Administration and Sidama zone administration since, 1995. Geographically it’s found 7 03’ latitude North abs 38029’ longitudes East. The average elevation of the city is bounded by Lake Awassa in the west, Awassa zuria wereda in the south and east parts and Oromia region in the north. The city has a number of government institutions, offices and bureaux. This sector, therefore, stands for a large proportion of employment in the city. The urban economy of the town can be categorized in to formal sector and informal sector. The formal sector that constitutes the public sector, the service and medium and large-scale industry employs significant proportion of labour force in town. The informal sector, on the other hand, employs a large proportion (65%) of labour forces in town; the majority of unskilled labourers are employed in this sector.

According to the Finance and Economic Development Office of the Transitional City Administration, in Awassa city there are 6.378 street children, 1.572 orphans, 2.378 beggars, 3.879 commercial sex workers, 4.780 elderly, 2.733 persons with disabilities and 11.345 unemployed persons. Awassa is divided in to seven sub-cities of which the target area are denied access to basic education and basic needs. They are exposed to going to streets, to being engaged in prostitution and child labour. It is therefore in an effort to minimize some problems that the project area and the children in them were selected.

The population of Awassa is growing fast. According to the 2007 census the population of Awassa is 280,593. This increase has put considerable pressure on the town. The number of street children is estimated to be in excess of 5,000. Because of the high incidence of HIV and Aids in the town the number of orphan and vulnerable children is increasing at an alarming rate.

As it is the case of Awassa, the population in the project area lives below poverty line, there is underemployment; the income is meagre and is not much left to support family life. Women and children are most affected by socio-economic burdens, manifested through poverty and subsistence living. Moreover, these days there are a high number of orphans and semi-orphans due to HIV/AIDS pandemic and HIV/AIDs, this is not a single disease rather it has adverse effects on social, psychological, healthy, economic and other developmental area of the country. Since its occurrence, the pandemic has resulted in the death of millions of people in different parts of the world especially in sub-Saharan Africa and particularly in Ethiopia leaving many children being orphan or semi-orphan. These children lack basic needs like food, shelter, clothing and family guidance and protection and are exposed to sexual abuse and social neglect. Due to destitution, it is difficult for the parents and guardians of the project, about 60% live below poverty line. Of the school age (5-19) children, only about 50% have the opportunity to attend. The rest are neglected either due to low awareness or in capacity to support the children due to poverty.

BENEFICIARY

Our project is dedicated to the "Street children" which is a term often used to refer to children who live on the streets of a city. They are basically deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old, and their population between different cities is varied. Street children live in abandoned buildings, cardboard boxes, parks or on the street itself. A great deal has been written defining street children, but the primary difficulty is that there are no precise categories, but rather a continuum, ranging from children who spend some time in the streets and sleep in a house with ill-prepared adults, to those who live entirely in the streets and have no adult supervision or care.

A widely accepted set of definitions, commonly attributed to UNICEF, divides street children into two main categories:

  1. Children on the street are those engaged in some kind of economic activity ranging from begging to vending. Most go home at the end of the day and contribute their earnings to their family. They may be attending school and retain a sense of belonging to a family. Because of the economic fragility of the family, these children may eventually opt for a permanent life on the streets.
  2. Children of the street actually live on the street (or outside of a normal family environment). Family ties may exist but are tenuous and are maintained only casually or occasionally.

Street children exist in many major cities, especially in developing countries, and may be subject to abuse, neglect, exploitation, or even, in extreme cases, murder by "cleanup squads" hired by local businesses or police. They often resort to petty theft and prostitution for survival. They are extremely vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. An estimated 90% of them are addicted to inhalants such as shoe glue and paint thinner, which cause kidney failure, irreversible brain damage and, in some cases, death.

The reasons to become a Street Child

Children end up on the streets for a variety of reasons.  Often, children have no choice but the streets because they are abandoned, orphaned, or thrown out of their homes. Some street children choose to live on the streets because the conditions at home are so bad; they may be mistreated, neglected, or their families cannot provide them with basic necessities. Many children seek work on the streets to increase their family earnings so they can survive. The following is a list of causes identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the creation of street children:

  • Family breakdown
  • Armed conflict
  • Poverty
  • Natural and man-made disasters
  • Famine
  • Physical and sexual abuse
  • Exploitation by adults
  • Dislocation through migration
  • Urbanization and overcrowding
  • Acculturation
  • HIV/AIDS

Problems or harsh realities which street children have to face

Street Children face many hardships living on the streets some of these include violence, sexual abuse, poverty, malnutrition, and other increased health problems. 

  • Violence: Children are often beaten by police and government officers as they attempt to ‘clean the street’ free of street children. They are often jailed for alleged crimes that they did not actually commit to ‘clean the street’.  Not only are street children beaten by police officers, the weaker children and girls are beaten by the older children and gang members.
  • Sexual Abuse:  Street children have also been required to give sexual favors to police officers. Police are not the only ones who sexually abuse street children.  Female street children are sexually abused by many other males as well, including other street children. 
  • Drug Abuse:  Children on the streets often turn to drug abuse to make them feel better.  However, the drug abuse makes the children more vulnerable to violence and abuse.
  • Poverty:  The children living on the street have very little or, more usually, no money to use to support themselves.  As a result, street children turn to begging, self prostitution, and other degrading work for money. 
  • Malnutrition:  Since these children live in poverty they do not have access to food to maintain good health. Often children spend what money they make on drugs or unhealthy food.
  • Other Health Problems:  AIDS and HIV are increasingly becoming problems for street children. These and other diseases are easily contracted on the streets because of common drug use and sexual abuse.

Priority to the female street children!

Our project focalises in particular the female street children in Awassa. The worst aspect of street life is the manner in which specially the female street children obtain their subsistence. Begging and prostitution are unfortenetly very common among female street children. Being involved in gulit and petty trading in the streets, though not morally offending and degrading, expose them to behaviours that are detrimental to their physical, mental and emotional development. While working/living in the streets female street children are physically, sexually and morally abused by street boys and by some perverted adult members of society. Sex and material exploitation are the principal forms of victimisation and oppression by female street children which are documented in many reports. Multiplicity of unmet needs and complexities of problems surround the lives of female street children. For us there is an urgent need to meet the most pressing concerns of female street children, mainly food, shelter, education and security. We want to help them also to realise their potential for a bright future by devising programmes that will encourage their active participation.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES

The mission of the program is to provide holistic support to street children below 10 years of age to help them grow to be fulfilled and responsible productive citizens and improve livelihoods of children and families by way of assisting basic needs.

Specific Objectives

a) improve social participation of children
b) help children grow in good moral and manner
c) improve educational status of children
d) improve physical and psychical growth of children

GENERAL PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Education/Economic

  • Ensure at least 30 children regular school attendance
  • Follow-up academic status of 30 children and take proper action to make children improve performance.
  • Arrange tutorial classes to children who are weak in school to help them improve performance.
  • Supply 30 children with the necessary school materials such as exercise books, bags uniforms, books pen pencil and others.
  • Council 30 children in different aspect of life to give them guidance educational, morally, spiritually, psychologically.
  • Help 30 children to acquire different vocational skills as per their interest so that they will be self-supportive
  • Provide Boarding House (which is rented) for those who stick to the "rules and regulations of the house"* and provide these children with full board (3-4 traditional meals a day). This will be provided in stages: up to 10 for the first 2 months, up to 20 until month 4, up to 30 until month 6 for example. Therefore a   monthly report has to be forwarded to the Partners EBCC and Children First in which the numbers and names of "House children" are mentioned and the same Database for only "school children".  According to the monthly quantity of “school children” and “house children” the money for food will be calculated and transferred.

Physical/Health

  • Follow up the health condition of 50 children through regular check-up, healthy/hygiene education and medical treatment when they are sick.
  • Focuses on the spread of HIV/AIDs, increase the awareness of children to prevent the spread and care for those who are infected and/or affected by the pandemic. Prove special assistance for those children and families who are affected and infected by the diseases through and families who are affected and infected by the diseases through treatment, economic supported and counselling.
  • Supply 50 children with clothing and other hygiene materials.
  • Identify malnourished children and provide them with supplementary diet

Social

  • Organize children into different social groups such as drama, HIV/AIDs clubs and others and make them develop sense of harmony and leadership skill.
  • Organize tour programs to different educational, recreational and historic sites regularly so that they are exposed to different environments and can develop interests/ inclinations for their future career development.

Moral/Ethical

  • Give counselling services to children to make them deal with different problems that might arise from physiological, Social and other dynamics.
  • Give counselling services to the remaining family members of the street children, with the aim of re-integrating children into solid family structures where it is possible.

Project Implementation CONCEPT

The project has 2 phases

Phase 1 - Distributing of food in the streets

Phase 1 starts in the summer 2010. In this phase 50 street children between the age of 5- 10 (Boys until age of 10 years!) will be selected with the concerned sub-city officials and CBOs. Priority will be given to girls in the age of 5 – 12 years, as they are exposed to experience sexual assaults. These selected children will get a provision of food and clean water once a day. The food will be distributed at the place where they are living. These selected children will get a provision of food and clean water once a day. The place should be a decent place possibly away from the public as part of the public is considered to be poor as well and but cannot be part of food distribution due to concept guideline! In principle: The food will be distributed at the place where they are living.

The first phase could be summarized as a “trust-building” phase, as it is assumed that street children have lost trust to their families.

During the food distribution it is always communicated to the children that the food distribution on the street is only temporary and that our organization wants that they have a better childhood and future by learning the basic things in a school. The engaged street worker explain to them that in autumn the school will start for them where they receive school education and something to eat every day under the condition that they attend some lessons in the morning at the school.

The places where street children live are the places like Piazza, the Bus Station, Selassie Church and mobile area. The food support in the first phase is “MOBILE”. Every child receives a food and a plastic mug (this mug the child has to keep for the next day) for the clean water to drink.

Phase 2 : School education programme by offering lunch and up to 3 meals a day

Phase 2 will start on September 2010. In this phase 30 children who successfully graduated in phase 1 will get food support. An informal education program will be organized for these children. Children can get the food only if they attend in the morning some hours of school lessons.

On condition, that children obey to rules and regulations in the Boarding House/School the project aims at 30 children receiving

  • Full board (all traditional food) at the Boarding House.
  • and a decent place to sleep in a familiar surrounding

The project also tries to approach the families of the children so that the possibility exists to re-integrate the child into his/her family structures. So the parents would have regular "parents meetings" with the project officer. The project will above this be connected to the existing Legal Aid project of “Forum”. This means, that children will get legal aid, free of costs, if needed.

Project output

All Street children registered who successfully graduated from the first in the program have got access to education fee and materials, health care attention, nutritional support, clothing, educational recreational trips and moral and ethical upgrading for the overall wellbeing of their future life and sustainable growth.

DURATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PARTNER IN AWASSA

The project is planned at first for 1 year and it starts in June/July 2010. If the street children can be re-integrated successfully in the society we will continue it for the next few years. The implementation partner in Awassa is “Forum for Human Rights and Development” which has been established in 2005 by 7 experienced lawyers with a passionate interest in working for the implementation of human rights,equality and protection mainly for the very poor women in the town.

BUDGET

The costs of the project is calculated with about 20.000 Euro. Children First assumes 15.500 Euro, il nostro partner Edget Baandnet Children’s Care Centre 3.500 Euro and the rest the implementation partner in Awassa “Forum for Human Rights and Development”

 

Children First thanks
for its generous support for this project